>This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created.
And it very much is.
>It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide, for the two centuries.
Those are not personal wealth.
Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population. Statistically they even out, and only differences from them matter.
A guy living in a trailer park today, with a tv, microwave, electricity, some medical access etc, would be considered living like a king, compared to a 1600's peasant working in some feudal farm. That doesn't mean he feels (or is viewed) as such in our society.
Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population.
You seem to have gone backwards, and defined wealth as "only the things other people don't have", in which case of course it becomes a zero-sum. But that isn't what wealth is.
The modern understanding of Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. [...] In this larger understanding of wealth, an individual, community, region or country that possesses an abundance of such possessions or resources to the benefit of the common good is known as wealthy. -- Wikipedia
>This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created.
>And it very much is.
You may be confusing wealth with money, which is in fact a zero-sum game. Wealth, on the other hand, can be created and it's been constantly created all the time throughout history. The section on the Pie Fallacy in this article may help clarify it: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html
Unfortunately money can be created for some by restricting access to wealth.
Restrictions on housebuilding is a perfect example in the UK with its dysfunctional housing market. The older generations are happy to have their house prices artificially inflated by not allowing enough homes to be built for the younger generations and immigrants. Keeps rents and prices high while not creating any wealth.
Money as a form of credit is zero sum. For example on the other side of every US dollar is debt security (government or mortgage) that the Fed has bought. Money only has meaning if someone (maybe indirectly) owes you that money.
But it is correct that absolute wealth (or what economists call utility) is not zero sum. To focus on relative wealth is to invite unhappiness that no one or system can help. We don't live in Lake Woebegone.
This trope is so tired. Yes, I live better than a medieval peasant, and I have access to more computing power than ever. Yet, the standard of living across my entire family and most people I know is blatantly lower, in terms of human basics like housing and togetherness, than in my grandparents time, despite the fact that my grandparents were factory workers without even high school educations, and I am an experienced software engineer.
I think you have a rose-tinted view of the past. To take one example: I have much more togetherness with people in my family who would not be currently alive had they died of diseases with dramatically higher mortality rates 40 years ago.
Can we ask where you live? I wonder how local real-estate prices effect things. For example, I live in fly-over county in a $115,000, 1400 sq. ft. house on a large lot, while my brother-in-law lives in an 800 sq, ft. house on a tiny lot in Seattle that is apparently worth more than $400,000. I support my wife and 4 kids on one income, while he and his wife both work to support their two kids. So even though I make considerably less money, we have a lifestyle that is on par with the 1950's ideal.
Are you seriously attempting to make the case that automobile accidents and overabundance of food have made all of our other advancements a complete wash? That is delusional.
I only gave the example to say that what's basic is relative (compared to current standards), so saying that a trailer-park person has more access to more things than a peasant doesn't mean anything.
For one, because most people can not even point Canada on the map, much less know anything about the living conditions in the medieval age.
In fact, most things people associate with the middle ages are either BS or happened at other times. Witch-huns and the Inquisition for example, are phenomena of the Renaissance, not of the middle ages. Even the Plague happened on the tail end of the middle ages entering into the Renaissance.
Heck, even fewer know that the ratio of holidays (what we'd call bank holidays today) to work was extremely higher in the middle ages compared to today.
Most homeless/coupon-living/trailer individuals would be much better off in the middle ages compared to today.
And it very much is.
>It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide, for the two centuries.
Those are not personal wealth.
Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population. Statistically they even out, and only differences from them matter.
A guy living in a trailer park today, with a tv, microwave, electricity, some medical access etc, would be considered living like a king, compared to a 1600's peasant working in some feudal farm. That doesn't mean he feels (or is viewed) as such in our society.